Apartment Hunting

I currently live in a gated compound 2 mins drive to the office. It's a lovely unit, a huge 3 bedroom double storey house that I share with another lady. However, it's 30mins drive from town, and there are no shops except a small grocery store within walking distance. The style of architecture in Abu Dhabi is also very 'closed', just meters of solid concrete walls around compounds and houses, so it feels extremely isolated. I have the option of living here in the long term, but after 1 week here, I don't think I'll be able to hack it..so I started my apartment hunting exercise to find a more suitable place to live..

The residential market is very tight in Abu Dhabi. There are lots of very old units around, or large villas, but no mid to high range apartments for expats. That has resulted in Abu Dhabi being one of the more expensive cities in the world for rent - a decent 1 bedroom apartment in a reasonable location costs AED100-140k per year. A 2 bedroom unit with facilities in Dubai costs AED90k. So about 60% of my colleagues live in Dubai and commute for 2.5 hours each day. The drive is apparently very intense with most people weaving in and out of traffic at 140-200km/h!

I went to see some units with some agents over the last few days. It's interesting, agents will show an apartment that is not renovated, with dust and rubbish everywhere. An agent that I went with turned up at 2 apartment blocks only to discover that the units that were originally listed were all rented out already. Apparently 1 sheik will own the whole block and the agent has to liaise with his office to get their hands on any available apartment. One of my colleagues also met a real estate agent, but the agent turned up with 5 other guys. Kinda scary!

I have not seen anything nice through these agents, so I might end up with a company leased apartment somewhere closer to the city...I will head up to Dubai this weekend by hitching a ride with some friends just to check out the drive, and see if the AED50k saving is worth it!

P/s the photo above shows the state of apartments in the city - that's a rooftop, check out the wires and cables!